[ad_1]
FILE – In this Thursday, Sept. 29, 2016 file photo, Assistant Secretary of State Antony Blinken testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Syria. Blinken is the leading candidate to become President-elect Joe Biden’s nominee for secretary of state, according to several people familiar with Biden’s team planning. (AP Photo / José Luis Magana, File)
keystone-sda.ch
The president-elect of the United States, Joe Biden, has made the first decisions about the future cabinet: Tony Blinken to become Foreign MinisterUnder Barack Obama he was a security adviser to the then vice president and then to the undersecretary of state. Jake Sullivan, who was part of the US delegation that initiated the nuclear deal with Iran, has been appointed National Security Advisor. Likely Defense Minister Michèle Flournoy, who served in the Pentagon under Obama, is considered a European expert and a staunch transatlantic.
That’s good news. Europe and Switzerland will have contacts in Washington again in the future. Adults who recognize the value of multilateralism, whether in the fight against the pandemic, climate change or in the attempt to take a united front against China Xi Jinping and Russia Vladimir Putin.
Yet even with Biden there will be no going back to glorified times.
Resilient agreements with a government will be possible again in the future because there is cooperation in Washington, a process in which politics is defined. And it’s no longer a one-man show in the White House leading the way with erratic tweets.
However, even with Biden, there will be no going back to glorified times when Europe was primarily concerned with itself. Donald Trump started the trade war with China, but the US turn to Asia was the central motto of Obama’s foreign policy.
What Biden will not undo is America’s withdrawal from the Middle East and Afghanistan. Perhaps the hasty retreat that Trump wants to push can still be stopped. The danger threatens that Putin or his Turkish adversary Recep Tayyip Erdogan will shape the course of events and that regional powers will soon fight their fight with arms, or that China will fill the void.
Even President Biden will not relieve the Europeans and Swiss of difficult decisions on these issues.
With his nominations, the president-elect of the United States shows that he wants to make the United States a trusted partner again in foreign and security policy.
opinionPaul-Anton Kruger